Technical Tips - Online file storage

PAGE IN DRAFT - 30 JUNE 2008

Many small businesses face the problem of sharing files between the company's computers without installing the expensive LANs and WANs used by large companies. This problem is particularly acute when employees spend a significant amount of their time working away from the office.

One of the earliest responses to this particular problem was the use of FTP sites. These provide a simple way to upload files from one computer, and download them to another, but the technology is crude and the security basic. FTP sites are still widely-used for the occasional transfer of small numbers of large files between different companies but they are no longer the preferred solution for file-sharing within a company.

There are two main online alternatives to networked file sharing, by LAN or WAN, or the use of FTP sites:

Virtual Drives

The main characteristic of these systems/services is the integration with your PC file system - the online storage server appears as another drive on your computer. This enables easy drag-and-drop file transfer, generally with the uploading-and-downloading to the online server working in the background.

Some companies provide software to enable users to manage their own online storage system, maybe as folders on the company's web server; others provide both the software and the online storage file server. Both systems are popular for online data backup services but there are fewer that offer true file-sharing capabilities.

www.webdrive.com

Web-Managed Storage

The online storage and sharing of photographs is now well-established on sites such as Flickr, MyPhotoAlbum, and PhotoBox, but similar services for non-media files are still in their infancy.

The examples listed below are a small selection of the services on offer. They all provide online file storage space, managed by a web-based user interface, with varying degrees of sophistication on how the file-sharing may be controlled. Some services offer the options of a web-managed interface, or a virtual drive, as alternative ways of accessing the same data.

  • Box - www.box.net
  • A deceptively simple, and highly-intuitive, interface to a surprisingly sophisticated product. There are several different methods of file-sharing, at both file level and folder level, available on all versions. Definitely "worth a look" for those who need a collaborative product and who don't mind a totally web-based system, and the best product for those just testing-out whether an online file storage system is what their business needs.
  • Four levels : Lite (1GB, Free); Individual (5GB, $7.95/month); Business (15GB, $19.95/month); Enterprise (storage capacity based on number of users, $15/user/month).
  • BT Digital Vault - www.productsandservices.bt.com
  • Primarily marketed as a file backup service for the non-technical home user with a rather clunky, and advert-dominated, interface and very limited user-configuration.
  • Two levels : Digital Vault (5GB, free for BT Total Broadband customers); Digital Vault Plus (50GB, £4.99/month).
  • Humyo - www.humyo.com
  • Has the advantage of a desktop client (Premium version only), allowing access to the Humyo storage as a virtual drive on your computer. The web-based interface is not quite as intuitive as Box, but Humyo is "worth a look" if the choice of web-based or virtual drive is important.
  • Two levels : Free (30GB, Free, although this is split 25GB for media files and 5GB for other files); Premium (100GB for all files, £39.99/year, with each additional 100GB at £49.99/year).
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